My ML class has two professors.Â One of them is this German guy who talks sort of like Ranier Wolfcastle (MacBain) of Simpsons fame.Â If the other instructor were a character from the Simpsons, he would definitely have to be that nerdy scientist guy.Â So if you close your eyes in class, you can pretend that you’re watching an episode of the Simpsons… only it’s a really boring episode in which MacBain and the nerdy scientist guy get together to talk about polymorphic type checking.

Sometimes I wish that CS lectures could be more exciting.Â One way to possibly accomplish this would be to have a designated cheerleader section in Wean Hall 7500. Â The designated cheerleaders would encourage the crowd to cheer when various key elements of the course’s subject matter were introduced.Â For example, when the lecturer completed a proof by structural induction, the cheerleaders would scream “YEAH!Â STRUCTURAL INDUCTION KICKS ASS!”Â Or when the professor rewrote a function to be tail-recursive, they could shout “GO ML!Â COMPILER OPTIMIZATION IS THE FUCKING SHIT!”Â If they coordinated with the professor before each lecture, they could even design their cheers to reinforce the crowd’s understanding of important concepts by exclaiming things like “HOORAY FOR THE CONCATENATION OPERATOR!Â IT’S LEFT-ASSOCIATIVE!”